Aaron - Ruth - Mays - Oh : possible signed ball question
 

Is there such a thing as a ball signed by Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays and Sadaharu Oh?

Doug

I've seen Ruth & Aaron duel signed balls. Adding the other two would have been very possible.

I would just question somebody who wanted to add those signatures later to a single Ruth ball though. But then again, collectors will do all kinds of things to items that could stand as gems alone. I can understand adding a missing player to a team ball decades later. But adding to a single Ruth ball...that opens up a lot of questions to collectors who may have wanted to buy it.

I meant my question to include any signed ball, that may have included other players, also.

But your comment brings up an interesting point regarding the "value" of stuff.

I'm not really an autograph guy, although as a kid I used to get autographs at games, back in those days (1970s / early 1980s) I don't remember anybody getting single signed baseballs, at least not at the side of the field. If we got rookie sensation Freddie Lynn to sign a baseball, we were happy to then hand the same baseball to Rick Burleson, or even to Campy Campaneris or Joe Rudi.

I would much prefer to have a ball signed by Babe, Hank and Willie, than single signed balls from each of them. And if Bill Dickey or Carl Reynolds or some schmuck also signed it, that doesn't change the fact that Babe, Hank & Willie all held that ball in their hands, which to me is a very cool thing.

That probably puts me in the minority, at least with collectors who are concerned with the resale value, I know.

Do you have a picture?

A few examples will show if you google:

babe ruth and hank aaron signed baseball

Actually, I'm with you here. Personally, I prefer multi-signed balls with several of my favorite players, especially if they are similar types of players or have some type of connection (ie- Koufax/Drysdale, all star team balls, Branca/Thompson, etc). I always felt like many single signed balls are like a waste of real estate on a ball...but I know I'm in the minority here as well. Although I will admit, some single signed balls along the sweet spot can look great too. Koufax and DiMaggio's look great across the sweet spot, for example.

I agree 100%. I also love multi-signed balls. I've got a handful of HOF, HOF pitcher balls which were signed in person at the SF All-Star fan fest a few years ago.. Also have an old Dodger ball (Koufax, Drysdale, Snider, etc) and an old 1935 Tigers ball (Cochrane, Gehringer, Goslin, Greenberg, etc). My most prized ball however is a multi signed ball my dad got as a kid, which has an 18 year old Mickey Mantle on the sweet spot, surrounded by both Enid (OK) Giants and Joplin Miners. I've had several people say, "it's a shame the mantle isn't a single signed ball", but I prefer it as is. It gives a built in context and timeframe.. And I also think they look cooler than a ball that's 95% blank. I have dozens of single signed balls, but my multis are by far my favorites. I hope I/we remain a minority and can continue to pick up these balls at relatively low cost.

If I remember correctly someone did a signing with Oh in the early 90s in the states which is where most of the Aaron / Oh dual signed stuff comes from. Could someone have had a Ruth ball done? Sure. You never know what people want to add a signature on. Personally I stay away from that Oh's i have seen as I believe most are fake.

Side note I have a single signed Oh ball that a former teammate had him sign to my son while he was playing in Japan for him? Apparently personalization is not big in Japan. The interpreter tried several to explain what they wanted Oh to sign on the ball, finally frustrated the interrupter did the personalization for Oh who then signed the ball

Still curious if anybody has ever seen one...

Steiner is selling this gem in the same vein:

https://www.steinersports.com/baseba...:i-r16c1:po-49

Ugh. I hate the way contemporary celebrities and athletes sign their names.

This looks like Mickey Mantle and some six year old's scrawl.

Jack Petrozelli & 59 innings did a show called "The International" at the Anaheim Convention Center in the 1990's that did in fact feature HR sluggers Hank Aaron and Sadaharu Oh.
I personally went to this show and opted to get a IP single signed beauty of Sadaharu Oh instead a getting one dual signed since I already owned a really nice single signed Aaron. I recall some people getting both to sign a single ball. Additionally, Oh reluctantly signed a few balls in Japanese and in English. If I recall correctly, Oh charged either $50 or $75 for his SS autograph. which I felt was a true bargain for "Mr. 868"

Doug,
I have not seen a ball signed by all of these gents, FWIW.

I thought I remember reading more than a few accounts from people who asked Mays to sign something multi-signed only to have him write over someone else's name. Imagine he did that to somebody's Ruth?

Out of curiosity I just checked auction results in Japan and this is the closest I could come up with, its kind of neat:

https://aucfree.com/items/c727273087

Its a ball signed by Hank Aaron, Sadaharu Oh, Ichiro, Pete Rose and Isao Harimoto.

Basically the career home run and hits leaders from MLB and NPB all on one ball just minus Barry Bonds (Isao Harimoto is maybe the only unfamiliar name for Americans, he is the career hits leader in Japan's NPB).

Sold last April for 152,000 Yen, which is about 1400$ US at current exchange rates.

Mays would be an odd addition to the hypothetical ball.

I have a mid-1920s style ball signed by Ruth, Gehrig, Walter Johnson, Sisler, Cobb, Collins whose previous owner had added an Aaron autograph to prior to me acquiring it. Ballpoint + fountain pen makes it look quite odd.

He was # 3 on the all time HR list for a long time...

Full disclosure
 

Ha! Wow. Your post causes me to re-title this thread and tell my full story.


I'm from a small town north of San Francisco in the middle of nowhere, about 100 miles north of Candlestick Park. That spring or summer, I somehow became aware of a baseball card show at a mall in Mountain View, CA, which is about 35 miles south of Candlestick Park.

I had never been to a baseball card show before, but I collected cards and autographs (I wrote letters to everybody, and went to games early) but decided to make the nearly 3 hour drive.

I scraped up all my cash (less than $100 probably) brought my binder cover signed by the entire Raiders 1975 squad (in person at family day of training camp in Santa Rosa) thinking I might be able to trade or sell it, and got on the road in the early am.

The "show" was actually a bunch of dealers with tables spread throughout a regular mall. I walked around looking at each table, carefully making mental notes about what I wanted to come back to buy.

At one point I bought an autographed card for $12, I think it might have been a Whitey Ford, but I don't remember.

On the bottom shelf at one dealer's table, in the middle from front to back, towards the left from right to left, there was a dirty baseball with some signatures. There was a little handwritten sign that said "Ball signed by Babe Ruth" and there on the sweetspot was a slightly faded "Babe Ruth". It gives me chills to type that sentence.

I had never seen anything like it.

It was amazing.

I asked the dealer if I could see it.

He pulled it out and handed it to me. I stared at the Babe, then turned it and saw Chas. Ruffing, and Bill Dickey, then Wes Farrell, then...

Lou Gehrig.

There were other signatures, but I stopped there and asked the dealer the price. It was $200.

After buying the Whitey Ford card I had maybe $85.

The dealer had no interest in the Raiders binder, but he had a buddy at the show who might. The buddy didn't. But he had a friend in Fresno who might. We called the friend from a pay phone. He was interested. I needed $115 he wouldn't go higher that $100. I took it. I can't remember what happened to the Whitey card exactly but it went into the deal. Maybe the original dealer bought it back for $10 or took pity on the desperate teenager, maybe the Babe dealer took it, but I walked out of that mall with the ball.

On the way home, I was about to run out of gas, and I had no money, and no credit card. But I had a portable cassette player (the El Camino I had bought from my dad didn't have a stereo yet). Yes, my dad sold it to me, kids didn't get given cars in my home town.

I traded the "ghetto blaster" to the guy at the gas station for a tank of gas, and made it home with my new prized possession.

When I got home I figured out that the ball must have been signed at a game against the Red Sox in 1934, and it was also signed by Joe Mulligan, Dick Porter, Dusty Rhodes, Roy Johnson, Carl Reynolds, John Allen and somebody else who I could never figure out.

That's when I started my quest.

I saw that Willie Mays was going to be at a Giants game, maybe it was an old timers day or something, and decided that I needed to get him to sign the ball. I drove down early for the day game, with no intention to go to the game, due to me needing to be at my grocery store job at 3 pm. I was waiting outside the gate by the player's lot when Mays drove in. There were a bunch of people there all clambering for him to sign, but I was the only one who made it past the security guard. I reached the ball and a pen out towards Willie and said "Mr. Mays, would you sign my baseball, please".

He took the ball and pen from me and as he started to sign, I noticed two things - one the pen wasn't "clicked out" so it wasn't going to write, and two HE WAS ABOUT TO SIGN DIRECTLY ON TOP OF BABE RUTH!!!!!!!

"Don't sign it there!!" I said (probably more of a desperate yell, hahaha), and he thrust the ball and pen back at me saying "If you don't want me to sign it, then here" and shoved it in my hands.

As I numbly walked out of the player's lot, the security guard who I had beaten said "man, you just pissed off Willie Mays" with a confused look on his face.

I went to the box office and bought a cheap seat to the game, made my way down to the side of the field, between home and the Giants dugout, clutching my ball.

Various player were signing for everybody crowding over the rail, Cepeda, Fuentes, etc, but I wasn't getting any signatures. A lady standing next to me asked why I wasn't getting any autographs, and I told her I just needed Mays. "That's going to be a hard one to get" she laughed, and I said that I knew, that I had already almost gotten it, and told her what had happened in the players lot.

"Do you know where you are right now?" she asked me.

Of course I did.

"But do you know exactly where you are?"

I was was confused and told her so.

"You are in Bob Lurie's box, Mr. Lurie is a friend of mine, and I'll bet he could help you get Mr. Mays to sign your ball."

Wow.

She called out to Bob Lurie, and he walked over to us, "tell him what happen" she said.

"I pissed off Willie Mays", I said, and proceeded to tell him the whole story.

Lurie laughed and said, "I';ll bet that if Willie knew what had happened he would sign the ball for you, but he's not going to be able to come over here, so if you will trust me to take the ball from you, I will take it over to him and ask him if he will sign it for you."

Wow.

"But," continued Bob Lurie, "you need to do one thing for me."

Ok...

"You need to lose that jacket!" said a grinning Bob Lurie to this Dodger's fan standing in his box wearing my bright blue Dodger's jacket.

I honestly don't remember whether I said I could or couldn't lose the jacket, but I still have it, and a smiling Bob Lurie took the ball and went out to have Willie Mays sign it for me.

A photographer standing on the other side of the lady took the pictures below and sent them to me.

I also got Hank Aaron (with an assist from Duffy Jennings, SF Giants publicity director in those days), Frank Robinson (who threatened to steal the ball), Harmon Killebrew and Sadaharu Oh (with the help of the Japanese promoter on a tour I did in Japan) to sign the ball, but those are other stories.

So, there is, or at least was (at the time), a ball that the top six HR hitters in the world signed.

But then comes the sad part of my story.

Somehow when I bought my first house in 2000 and moved all of my belongings from storage in my home town to my Los Angeles home the ball disappeared. 20 years ago last month. I lost sleep for months (I'll probably lose sleep tonight). I went to a hypnotist. I search auctions and ebay all the time. I didn't pray, because if there is a god, she has better things to do.

That's my long, and eventually depressing, story.

Doug "it drives me crazy" Goodman


PS - I apologize for the length of this post, and for not checking for typos. I can't bear to read it, it bums me out.

That was such a great story until the part about losing the ball, really sorry about that! Its so great that the photographer sent you the photos though, they really add to it.

I sure hope it turns up some day!

Wow, Doug, what an amazing story!
I love it, including the part that you had to barter your ghetto blaster for a tank of gas for the Elk. :D
So sorry to hear that you lost the ball. :(

Man, what a story. I hope that ball is somewhere out there still, even if it's lost you.

I agree, but I do hope that if it is, I some day am able to get it back.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

Look what I found!!!!!

Read the original sad sad story below in post #21.

In a closet at my parents house, with special thanks to my dad for spending 10 days in the hospital causing me to come home to help my mom. Dad is home now and doing better, and I was going thru his closet to find a specific shirt that he thought would be more comfortable...

Wow!!! Great ending!!

Doug, I am so happy for you! That is the greatest baseball I've ever seen. I read my wife your story, without stating you found it, and she was quite upset I would tell her a sad story. But she was very excited for you too when she discovered you got it back.

I just got my third team signed ball: 1990 Cincinnati Reds. I think they are so cool.

Sent from my SM-G9900 using Tapatalk

AMEN !!! what a GREAT ending

I even told my mother! hahaha

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Amazing!

Thank you guys for all the kind words.

Does anybody have any "that doesn't look good" opinions on the Ruth or the Gehrig (he's below Frank Robinson)?

I don't really care, but I am curious.

Wow, just wow!

I'm so happy for you that you finally found it after all these years! What an absolute treasure!

Hey Doug, congrats on finding your ball. That's awesome!
I loved your initial post & I'm glad that it finally led to you being reunited to this unique ball. :D

Great story! I was happy for you, then sad for you, then happy for you again! Love stories like this!

The Ruth is without question authentic.

Incredible story with an even better ending!

This was moved from the autograph section so more members can read a great story. Congrats Doug!
.

So happy you rediscovered it, Doug. And you did so while doing something nice for your Dad. Lesson learned.

Man, you have to love how the more modern ballpoint just clung on to that old leather for dear life. I wish Rawlings cared enough to study exactly why a 90 year old ball can hold ballpoint so well, yet their garbage Manfred and Selig balls fade after a year.

What's driving me nuts is who is underneath Dickey! I have spent so much time examining autographs from this era that identifying them is as second nature as breathing, so this is killing me. I can't make it out. The combination of fading & poor angle/lighting doesn't usually stand in my way, either.

Edit: Actually, maybe Carl Reynolds...has to be. Joe Mulligan only played one season. 1934 BoSox. Reynolds was his teammate.

Thank you Leon.


I will take better pictures at some point soon.

The 'lesser' signers are :
Joe Mulligan
Dick Porter
Dusty Rhodes
Roy Johnson
Carl Reynolds
John Allen
and somebody else who I could never figure out


Original 'big' names :
Babe Ruth
Lou Gehrig
Chas. Ruffing
Bill Dickey
Wes Ferrell


Those I added :
Willie Mays
Frank Robinson
Harmon Killebrew
Hank Aaron
Sadaharu Oh


Just as an FYI, at the time that I added signatures to the ball the top 5 home run hitters of all time were Aaron, Ruth, Mays, Robinson, Killebrew.

I'm so excited about being reunited with this ball, and I really appreciate all the comments.

Doug

Jack Onslow is the one you haven't listed, unless there's another.

I'm actually amazed that you saw everybody else. Rhodes was pretty faint. Of interest is that there were two Dustys on the '34 Red Sox, Rhodes and Cooke. Agree that it's Rhodes on the ball.

It's been around 40 years since I originally figured out the other names, and they have all faded a bit since then.

As for Onslow, would he have had a reason to be at a Red Sox / Yankees game in 1934? I always had Fritz Ostermueller as a maybe on my list.

Edited to add that I see Onslow was a Red Sox coach in 1934... he's probably the one.

Awesome story Doug!! Not that it’s even crossed your mind, but please don’t add Bonds to this ball! I think it would be bad juju, personally.

Incredible story! And a happy ending to boot!

Ha! Bonds, Pujols, Rodriguez, Griffey, Thome, Sosa, McGwire, etc. Nope, sorry guys, it's perfect how it is.

After I got Aaron on it I thought about getting Mantle, but I liked 'top 5' better than 'top 6'.

Amazing story Doug!! We are super happy for ya. I shared your story with Janice as well--just simply incredible! Cheers man!

A great story and ball. Congratulations

Loved reading your story Doug and very happy you found it. I’ve had things go missing and never found, so I know the feeling.

What was you first thought when you rediscovered it?

I yelled "Aaaahhhh!!!" when I saw the box, scaring my parents in the other room.

As I reached for it, and pulled it to me, I turned into a 6 year old hoping that Santa brought me what I asked for, and not something his elves had too much of.

When I opened the box and saw the ball for the first time in 23 year I was swept over by supreme giddy happiness similar to that felt by 16 year old girls who get to touch the ends of their favorite teen-idol singer's shirt as he passes by... or the screaming girls outside the Beatles limo in the early / mid 60s).

🤣🤣🤣…and that’s the way it should be!

That's awesome. Deep down did you think for 23 years that your life was a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle but you only had 499 pieces?

498 1/2

There is one other thing that I don't lose sleep over (hence the half)